Heavy Storm Damage Inspections

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Pierre C Belarge

Pierre C Belarge

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Westchester County, New York
I just posted in another thread, and it made me think of this question.

The recent storm in our inspection area has left about 3000 buildings (homes & businesses) without power. The damage is from slight to very serious, buildings being condemned.

With that said, these buildings all needed some type (Building, Fire, Plumbing, Electrical) of inspection for the power to be turned back on. All needed a "Temp Certificate" from an electrical inspection company...imagine how many "regular" inspections did not get made.

My question...just a question.

Would one be inclined to let certain items of normal inspections slide to permit the power to be turned back on?
Remember that the other work in these buildings...boilers and cleanup, could not be performed without power.
 
We had this happen a few years ago. The fire dept. was the first to respond to calls. They flat out shut off gas & power to buildings they thought were unsafe. They, then, gave us, the building inspection dept. to assess structural damage. First, make sure the bldg. is safe to enter. Sometimes we requested an engineer to ok the structure. If the bldgs. were safe to enter, we would allow gas & elec. back on. This was a very interesting & stressful inspection gig. Good luck.
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
My question...just a question.

Would one be inclined to let certain items of normal inspections slide to permit the power to be turned back on?
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That's a tough question ...one that should probably be taken on a case-by-case basis....but time may not allow for that ~ people need to get their lives back in order and that is understandable.

One of the issues I see is: Who is at fault?
Say you go for the inspection..it's painfully obvious the basement "finish job" was less than code worthy...but who did it - the present HO or the pervious HO? Who knows? Chances are the present HO, while proud of their "skills", may not vocalize that "pride" in front of an inspector for fear of delay or fines. What if the present HO bought the previous owner's "skills"? Who is to say? Should the present HO be penalized for the previous HO?

It's a tough question.
 
celtic said:
That's a tough question ...one that should probably be taken on a case-by-case basis....but time may not allow for that ~ people need to get their lives back in order and that is understandable.

One of the issues I see is: Who is at fault?
Say you go for the inspection..it's painfully obvious the basement "finish job" was less than code worthy...but who did it - the present HO or the pervious HO? Who knows? Chances are the present HO, while proud of their "skills", may not vocalize that "pride" in front of an inspector for fear of delay or fines. What if the present HO bought the previous owner's "skills"? Who is to say? Should the present HO be penalized for the previous HO?

It's a tough question.
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All well spoken!!!

But...which is more important, safety, cost or getting power back on????
I am still interested in what others have to add to this. I think it is important, as we are going to put a task force together to help determine how this type of emergency will be dealt with in the future.



P.S.
No fines are being dealt for any work that was illegally performed prior to the storm. Who has the time to figure out who did it?
 
I think you have the order correct: safety

Here in NJ (Bound Brook) there was sever flooding.
Their OEM(?) is being both praised and chastised for their handeling of the situation.
I do not have complete details, but I believe they went house to house, block by block...one HO might be given an "all clear" today, while their adjacent neighbor (across street or across backyard) might not get an "all clear" for a week (of course not everyone recieves an "all clear"). Understandably, the inspection crews cannot be everywhere at once - how many of these crews would you need?


I'll see if I can dig up some details.
 
During the Northridge earthquake, the power was out for almost two day because the power grid was damaged.

Now to my point, many hundreds of inspections were not made before the power came back on and people just started turning things on. I will say that the electrical system in most places was the least of our worries. Broken water pipes and gas lines and of course structural damage were the big ones.

Of course there are different problems, if it was a flood we would have had to inspect each and every service to make sure that it was ok. Tallgirl would know more about that as I think she was in New Orleans.

Are you down there in Texas Pierre?
 
Pierre, my opinion would be that safety is obviously going to be the first concern. As much as you want to minimize cost to these people and as much as you want them to be able to start putting their lives back together as soon as possible, you have to look at the safety aspect first. And, unfortunately, it's going to have to be done on a case by case basis.

As I see it, there are a couple of options for this. Either a blanket, disconnect all branch circuits in the panel with the exception of a single circuit for a GFCI protected receptacle, inspect this installation and release the service for re-connection. Or, an inspection of each structure, just as it is, to determine whether or not the service and wiring are safe to be energized. Either way, it's going to be a lot of inspections. The idea of no fines for illegal work performed in the past is a good one and can be to your advantage. Blanket immunity is sometimes a good way to clean some of this stuff up.

Bottom line is no matter what you do or how you do it, you're going to make people unhappy. They won't get their services energized soon enough, they'll have to repair things that are unsafe (we've all heard it, "it's been like that for 30 years and been perfectly safe...") that they don't want to, or they'll just be plain tired of dealing with any type of beauracracy.
 
Here are some details:
Frustrated Bound Brook residents demand answers
BOUND BROOK -- Frustration and anger at a borough's Office of Emergency Management public information meeting late Wednesday afternoon escalated to the point that borough police officers and the Somerset County SWAT team were called to Borough Hall.
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Maybe an example of what NOT to do?

BOUND BROOK OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ~ Flood Update

April 23st, 2007 10:00 AM Flood Update
  • Borough Official are aggressively pursuing all reports of contractor fraud and price gauging.
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[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]April 18th, 2007 9:00 PM[/FONT]
Flood Update
ZONE #1 COMPLETED
[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Entry to zone will be from Hamilton Street at the intersection at East High Street.[/FONT]
  • Residents and business owners must present identification and must accompany any licensed contractors they employ. NOTE: Unregistered or unlicensed contractors or solicitors will be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law.
  • Licensed plumbing and Electrical contractor will have there license on their vehicles. If in doubt please call the Building Dept at 732-356-0833 prompt 1. All home re-modelers and contractors must be registered by the state and must present their license to you.
  • Work that requires permits must be obtained from the building department.
[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]All fees have been waived for the effective zones[/FONT]
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Even with inspection procedures in place(haven't found the procedures, yet)...there are other issues which need to be addressed.
 
Bound Brook may have run into some of the problems we have seen.

1. Customer lying about water in their home.

2. non-licensed people hammering price on unsuspecting homeowner and not doing the proper work- then disappearing into the wind.

3. The power grid coming back on and some of the services damaged not booted - services smoking and the fire department called. This is stressing everyone, including the volunteer fire department - one homeowner died, as the fire could not be reached in time and he did not make it.

4. The general population is very distressed, not making decisions based on sound decisions and then doing battle with the inspectors/town officials.

5. The procedures all of the different inspectors are following are not the same- OH BOY IS THIS A PROBLEM!

6. Cost of repairs is more than some can afford. A very similar storm hit this area about 6 weeks prior, and most had made the repairs...now they are being made to do it again. Also some of the people were not made to make repairs during the first storm, now they are and they do not understand why.



It has been about 10 days since the water has receded , and I would say that 90% of the buildings have some kind of power restored. Of those, I would say that 70% still need major work done to restore the home/businesses back to liveable conditions.
New wiring, mold, construction, all kinds of other cleanup (remember the sewer system backed up into most of these buildings), boilers, etc...

The affected area I am in is about 20 miles north of NYC.
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
Bound Brook may have run into some of the problems we have seen.
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No doubt.

I did some brief searching for some sort of hardcopy procedure...found nothing I would deem "acceptable" (and I'm sure your knowledge far exceeds mine).

Would it be out-of-line to call Bound Brook and ask them for a hardcopy as a guideline in developing yours?


..or even FEMA?
 
That's what I was thinking ...any/all help available ...paying close attention to other's failures so as to not repeat those issues in a new community... etc.


Good luck.
 
Anyone go thru NIMS training yet- the Gov't answer to standardizing disasters. Something I have heard- in New Orleans they brought cruise ships in for people to stay on since the level of destruction was so high.
 
Most of our people have been through the training. The thing is you have to have a Builing Inspector Certification to get certified.

If you think things are bad now, wait until FEMA shows up and you see the amount of paperwork that you have to fill out.

We have an EOC (Emergency Operation Center) the big wigs get together several times a year and have drills. When the earthquake hit, you would never had known that we were supposed to be prepared. Seemed that nobody knew who anyone was, who was in charge of what, how we were to procede, we had no interdeparment communication and very unreliable phone service, they would call us out of the field every couple of hours and tell us how they were changing things.

Then four straight weeks (7 days) of 16 hour days, which really start to wear on you.

One last thing pierre, take care of yourself. All of our people ended up getting sick from being so run down and depressed. Eat right and get all the rest you can.
 
Celtic:
From a co-worker who has a relative living in Bound Brook....
DCA had a 'team' there for restoration of power. Twp inspectors cannot handle the load. (No sarcasim, but reality)

I was there in '99 hurricane Floyd aftermath. There was no major flood damage to speak of in Edison, but neighboring areas had minor situations, compared to BB/Manville, etc.

As to proper handling of restorations, it's a case by case basis. NEMA reccomendations (from a DCA seminar) are guidelines that we follow.

John
 
Pierre,

Here is a thought maybe good maybe bad:
If the inspection is to approve "temporary" power maybe there is a gray area to dance in. One could certify that the home is roughly equally as safe as it was before the disaster hit and power was removed then passing a full inspection would be required before some deadline. This way you are primarily checking recent damage.

The down side, you might be missing a chance to save someones life or property if the home was already unsafe before the disaster.

Ed Jackson, P.E., Charlotte NC
 
if you were forced to leave your home or building by the city, county or state, and your home or building was flooded, IMO it should be posted unsafe until it can be inspected by electrical, fire, building & plumbing inspectors, turning the power back on may be the least of the worries
 
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Cowboy
Thanks for the advice

Celtic
I was handing those guidelines out during my inspections.

Some of the people who stayed in their homes during the storm for as long as possible had some interesting stories to tell.

One couple was in their home as the water was rising. Once the water reached the ceiling joists of the basement, they got nervous, as their car outside was in about 2 feet of water. Soon afterwards, the water was still rising and it started to seep up through the floor boards. Then the boards started to pop up from the subfloor and making a lot of "popping" noises. That was enough for them...as now their car was almost under water. So they called for help and they were a couple of the hundreds who had to be rescued.

I was inspecting on Monday night after a long day. It was dark and my flashlight was not fully lit anymore. I was in the basement with the utility gas man. As I turned to speak to him, I was looking in the wide open eyes of a dead cat. Needless to say, it gave me quite the scare. It had been washed up into the ceiling joists of the basement by the rising water and had drowned. I wonder how many other pets died the same fate?
 
Check the ICC Web site. They have a Disaster Responce Inspectors license. I am studying it now and plan to take the test on June 9th.
 
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